9:00 am – 10:00 am
Morning Keynote Presentation – Bridging the Technology Gap Between Generations with Joe Engle
Advancements in technology even in the last 10 years have reshaped how we all relate to and interact with
each other. These rapid changes have placed a greater emphasis on how generations interact with each other
in the workplace, perhaps more quickly than we could adapt intergenerational relationships around the use of
those technologies. The nonprofit sector is no exception where the workplace, fundraising, and nonprofit board
membership have all experienced shifts in thought and strategy based on intergenerational relationship surrounding the use of technology. These observations and lessons will then be translated into new potential recommendations for youth mentor programming.
AUDIENCE: All
Workshop Session I: 10:10 am – 11:25 am
BEST PRACTICES: Words Mean Things with Amy Rogers and Joan Miller
Have you ever referred to someone you are working with as a “client” or a “case number”? Have you ever thought of the people you work with in terms of their diagnosis, circumstances, or misfortunes? Although this maybe easier for us to say or a quick way to refer to the people we work with, have you ever thought about how this impacts how you work with or view people? In looking at the impact of our words on ourselves, our work, and the people we serve, this workshop provides a snapshot of the power of language and its impact.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
SPECIAL POPULATIONS: Los Angeles Youth Mentoring Project Findings…How an Idea is Becoming a Movement with Stephanie Inyama and Stacey Savelle
In this workshop, attendees will learn about the implementation of a Department of Health and Human Services mentoring partnership grant and the process that identified little known resources, gave voice to youth and other stakeholders, and laid the groundwork for countywide collaboratives. With a focus on mentoring system-involved youth, the project team uncovered programs, forged connections and re-vitalized the sense of mission some agencies were questioning in hard economic times.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field and Experienced in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/SYSTEMS: It Takes Two: Efficient Volunteer Management with Salesforce.com and America Learns with Carrie Ellett and Gary Kosman
Girls For A Change, an organization with volunteers across the country, has adopted two web-based services to bring massive efficiencies to its organization, save staff time, and increase volunteers’ impact. Attendees will learn how GFC used Salesforce.com to streamline its volunteer intake, screening, and placement process as well as how it uses the America Learns Performance Measurement & Learning Network. With these services, GFC makes sure that each volunteer receives the personalized coaching and support she needs every week to build a meaningful learning community among volunteers, makes training more responsive to volunteers’ on-the-ground needs, and improves its ability to track, evaluate and report on its volunteers’ activities and impact. Discussions and planning sessions will be incorporated so that attendees will walk away with concrete steps they can take to strengthen these aspects of their programs.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/FUNDRAISING: Using Kidsdata.org in Grant Proposals with JoAnna Caywood and Felicity Ayles
Do you need data about children and families for your grant proposals or reports? Kidsdata.org can help you find the facts quickly and easily. The user-friendly site offers nearly 300 indicators of child health and well being, ranging from family economics and physical health to child safety and emotional health. The site offers data for every community in California at the county, city, and school district levels, depending on the source. You also can compare regions of interest and view comparable state-level data. This seminar will help you get the most out of this website for your work.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field and Experienced in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/TOOLS: Web-based Mentor Recruitment and Engagement with Venessa Mendenhall
This workshop will introduce participants to three different tools they can use to recruit and engage volunteers and track outreach efforts: Facebook advertising, Meetup.com, and Highrise. Participants will receive objective feature-by-feature comparison tables for each product, and will share best practices in change management and technology adoption.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
Workshop Session II: 11:35 am – 12:55 pm
BEST PRACTICES: The Diana Screen – Screening Mentor Volunteers for Sexual Risk to Children with Whitney Gabriel
Just like all youth-serving organizations, mentoring organizations are targets for people who are a sexual risk to children. Even organizations knowledgeable about child sexual abuse and its prevention are vulnerable. People who pose a sexual risk to children use a variety of techniques to gain entrance into mentoring organizations. They are adept at passing standard screening methods and manipulating the organization’s need to quickly fill positions. This workshop will examine a new online technology screening tool that has proven effective at screening the general population to identify individuals who are a sexual risk to children and which can be used to screen mentor volunteers. The presenter will discuss the challenges to developing The Diana Screen along with its current and future applications. The experiences and dilemmas of youth-serving organizations using The Diana Screen will also be discussed, along with the research results of a pilot study.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
SPECIAL POPULATIONS: Friday Night Live Mentoring – A Peer-to-Peer Model that Works! with Nancy Rivera and Cindy Diezsi
This workshop will provide a snapshot of Friday Night Live Mentoring; a peer mentoring program that has been replicated in 27 counties across the state. Attendees can expect an interactive experience which includes the FNL Standards of Practice; Mentoring Model; and an overview of Project ALERT!, an evidence-based substance abuse prevention curriculum which has been adapted to the FNL model. As with all FNL programs, the workshop will deliver a powerful message and FUN!
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/SYSTEMS: One Giant Leap: Moving from Paper and Spreadsheets to an Integrated Database Tracking System with Dara Cerwonka and Rich Rainaldi
This workshop will begin with the evolution of tracking processes at Operation Jump Start (OJS,) a southern California college access mentoring organization. Topics will include the early challenges encountered with a spreadsheet system, their impact on measuring outcomes, the database solution and lessons learned in the implementation. OJS will demonstrate their system and highlight key parts that support their organizational data needs. Special emphasis will be given to the evolution of process and outcome indicators made possible by the database. We will then discuss CiviCore’s experience in this effort with OJS, highlighting both the organizational and technical critical success factors as well as the challenges faced as a solution vendor. CiviCore, drawing upon years of experience implementing these systems for more than 50 mentoring agencies, will illustrate the common pitfalls agencies run into when confronting these issues.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/TOOLS: Social Marketing: How Do I Use Facebook and MySpace to Recruit? with Cassie Alaniz
Today’s youth and 20-30 year olds are using technology to communicate with one another, learn about events, watch the news, and find friends. A smart phone, Blackberry, or iPhone can put the world in the palm of your hand. Most young adults, and even all adults, no longer get a mailed invitation but an Evite. This workshop will demonstrate how a Sacramento mentoring program utilized social media to recruit mentors, implement a fundraiser, and market themselves.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/FUNDRAISING: Viral Fundraising with Venessa Mendenhall
This workshop will introduce participants to three different tools they can use to empower mentors, staff, service recipients, and board members to advocate for and fundraise on your agency’s behalf: Facebook Causes, Network for Good, and AlumniFidelity. Participants will receive objective feature-by-feature comparison tables for each product, and will share best practices in change management and technology adoption.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
Lunch Keynote Presentation: 1:00 pm – 2:35 pm
Using Web-Based Technology in Mentor Training: Needs, Limits, Barriers, Advantages, and
Breakthroughs with Janis Kupersmidt, Ph.D.
This presentation will review the new standards, benchmarks, and justifications for mentor training that are
included in the Third Edition of MENTOR’s Elements of Effective Practice. The use of web-based technology
will be discussed as a possible means of helping to meet these new benchmarks. The many advantages to
using web-based training will be discussed by the group as well as some limits to web-based training including
the need to supplement web training with in-person training. In addition, possible barriers to using web-based
mentor training will be identified by local programs as well as some strategies for overcoming common barriers. New breakthroughs in the use of technology in the form of web-based training of youth mentors will be described, so that mentoring programs will have information about how to access currently available web-based training courses.
AUDIENCE: All
Workshop Session III: 2:45 pm – 4:00 pm
BEST PRACTICES: More Than Just Do No Harm: Ethics in Youth Mentoring with Sarah Kremer
Recent research reports that “the ethical implications of placing unrelated youth in the care of adults has been largely ignored in the field of youth mentoring,” a state which “has many pitfalls and could ultimately lead to poor and even harmful decisions” (Rhodes, Liang, and Spencer, 2009). This workshop will explore the “aspirational goals” developed by the same authors, including guidelines around safety, trust, responsibility, integrity, cultural differences, and respect. Additionally, we will discuss exactly how programs can implement important planning, programming, and risk management strategies in order to abide by these goals. Attendees will be encouraged to participate in discussions around practicality, feasibility, and the motivation of voluntarily complying with these five principles, given the lack of governing or oversight bodies in our field.
AUDIENCE: Experienced in the Field and Expert in the Field
SPECIAL POPULATIONS: Are You :) or :( ? Bridging the Cultural Gap of Technology in Mentoring with Anne Chan
Young people today grew up with cell phones and the internet, while many mentors grew up with land lines, television (without cable), and typewriters. Advances in technology have brought about major cultural shifts in how people communicate, the ways they communicate, and even when they communicate. Technology is an integral part of youth culture. To be able to connect effectively with youth, mentors need to understand the complex cultural facets of their protégés. This means having an appreciation for protégés’ multiple cultural identities (such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender), as well as an understanding of the culture of technology and how technology shapes their lives. This interactive workshop explores the impact of technology on mentoring relationships. Participants will learn how to use technology wisely to connect successfully with youth. The workshop will present practical and fun ideas to help mentors and program staff bridge the digital divide.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/SYSTEMS: Next Generation Mentoring: Safely & Effectively Incorporating Technology into Your Mentoring Program with Beverly Baker and Jeremy Schifeling
Millions of people of all ages are already connecting with one another on social networking platforms. How can organizations leverage this knowledge and technology to increase the depth and impact of mentoring programs while maintaining standards for quality and safety? Having established best practices for online and in-person mentoring programs based on ten years of experience, iMentor has developed iMentor Interactive, an online platform designed specifically for mentoring. iMentor will introduce participants to iMentor Interactive and the ways in which carefully designed social networking technology can enable organizations to successfully launch and manage high-quality, sustainable mentoring programs. These include online applications, computer-generated match recommendations, safe and structured email communication, a shared calendar system, and program evaluation tools. MORE Mentoring, an innovative mentoring program in Ohio, will discuss its use of iMentor Interactive and share best practices for developing and managing mentoring relationships online.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/TOOLS: Mentoring Central: Description of an Evidence- and Web-Based Mentor Training Program with Janis Kupersmidt, Ph.D.
This workshop will provided a detailed look inside the development, rationale, and content of the web-based mentor training program, Mentoring Central. The first course in the program, “Building the Foundation,” designed for pre-match training will be reviewed in detail. “Building the Foundation” is based upon state-of-the-art empirical research on mentor training, particularly in relation to how training can help to facilitate the development of high quality mentoring relationships, prevent premature match closures, and promote positive youth outcomes. The workshop will review the procedures and information that were used in the development of the course. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to interact with the course, review the course content, and analyze topics and strategies for supplementing pre-match web-based training with in-person training.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
TECHNOLOGY/TOOLS: Understanding the Use of Technology in Rural Communities with Samantha Nowak
Historically, mentoring programs have used various media like the local newspaper, radio, and newsletters for marketing, outreach and recruitment of program participants. However, as our society has entered the digital age and is going “green” there has been a shift from paper to disk drives! In rural Wisconsin we are successfully using these digital tools to reach children, youth and adults. As we developed and utilized these tools, we have also learned that special strategies, such as Facebook, texting, and local media, are needed to overcome barriers that are unique to rural areas with high levels of poverty.
AUDIENCE: New to the Field, Experienced in the Field, and Expert in the Field
